I don't know. Jesus never mentioned gays in the Bible. There may have been an obvious reason for that.
deanrd
Jesus did spiritual healing through divine forgiveness that magnified life giving and healing forces.
This is the same process of spiritual healing that people use today to rid the mind and spirit of unwanted attractions or unnatural desires.
Two of the Ten Commandments are not to commit Adultery and not to covet thy neighbors wife or anything that belongs to thy neighbor.
It is just as wrongful for people whether gay straight transgender etc. to covet someone who isn't their spiritually committed partner but belongs with someone else.
To lust for someone unnaturally is already committing "adultery" in the heart. Jesus said to hold anger or hatred toward others in the heart is already committing murder in spirit. The same applies to adultery and unnatural lust or coveting someone outside a spiritually committed relationship, whether that is heterosexual or homosexual. The key difference is if the people are committed partners or the attraction is unnatural, regardless of orientation. Are they spiritually a yoked couple or not?
What in the dickens is "spiritually yoked" What religion is this?
Dear
Lysistrata
It's a matter of partners being "equally yoked" in the right relationship with each other.
2 Corinthians 6:14King James Version (KJV)
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
When people are the right partners for each other,
spiritually, they grow together. If they are not
"equally yoked" they grow apart, because they
grow in different directions at different rates,
and one leaves the other behind.
This applies to any relationship between any two people,
to make sure it is never abused.
Paul wrote Corinthians, not Jesus. Moreover, even if one believes that Paul somehow spoke for the Supreme Being, the passage only says that the two partners should be equal in their beliefs.
Thanks
Lysistrata
Yes, the partners should be properly matched.
Your explanation is a more exact way of speaking to the same point I am trying to make,
though I'm trying to cover broader ground at the same time
(incidentally this also applies to why believers under
spiritual laws of the church "should not be yoked" with secular gentiles under
civil and natural laws that REJECT the laws of the church; if the govt laws
are in harmony and consistent with church laws, there is no conflict. if people
cannot agree because of beliefs, this is why I am saying they should SEPARATE
and govern themselves under their own laws, leaving the govt to where all people AGREE)
You may see this passage as just "Paul" speaking, on practical matters,
without the direct authority of Jesus;
but "natural laws" that govern humanity also come from Nature or God
which humanity came from. Jesus fulfills these laws as the authority of "justice"
but anyone including Paul you or me can CITE natural laws that apply universal human nature/beings in general.
There are TWO paths, the secular gentiles under Natural laws
and the believers under scriptural laws and authority; Jesus fulfills BOTH paths as the spirit of justice,
and believers are supposed to respect BOTH authorities, and that's where the two paths either need
to agree on laws to make these public for everyone or agree to separate (as Jesus said: render under
Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God what is God's). These two should never impose on each
other through govt, so I see a massive need to separate jurisdictions and govern locally by consent of
each community that agrees with each other, and quit making federal cases and issues over beliefs!
As for the other Biblical laws that speak even stronger to proper spiritual relations,
I cited two of the 10 commandments (which I guess you would
say came from Moses not Jesus)
1. not to commit adultery
2. not to covet thy neighbor's wife or anything that is thy neighbor's
And in Matthew 5:28, to commit lust or "covet" in spirit is already
committing adultery.
I found a more detailed explanation, linked as well as copied below,
that the lust in itself isn't the real target here
but
"coveting that which isn't rightfully ours"
"Whoever Looks at a Woman With Lust": Misinterpreted Bible Passages #1 | Jason Staples
The argument I focus on refers to ANY sexual relationship being improper
is if those two people are NOT each other's spiritual complements,
and if they are really intended to be the spouse or partner of OTHER people.
(this applies to rape, incest, child abuse, relationship abuse, sexual abuse, etc.
and not just targeting homosexual relationships)
The idea is those people should reserve sexual relations for OTHER people who ARE their
"proper partners" (NOTE: for couples who practice open marriages and connect with
other couples, equally "yoked" as soul-mates who consent to and believe the same things
about marriage: This reminds me of Jesus answering about marriage and the resurrection:
30
In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven. 31)
Where people have their own private beliefs, by the First Amendment these cannot be banned from practice
(except where illegal actions violate other laws such as on rape, incest, child abuse, etc.),
but this goes BOTH ways: the govt can NEITHER "establish or prohibit" the free exercise of religion
which I interpret to be beliefs including political beliefs and not just organized religion or that is discriminating
and not protecting all individuals if they have to belong to certain religious groups for the law to apply.
The problem is gentiles and nonbelievers cannot be forced by law and govt to endorse and comply with beliefs,
but this isn't being equally applied to believers who argue that LGBT policies are faith based "beliefs."
The LGBT beliefs keep getting pushed as more inclusive neutral default to "include" more freedom,
but instead it is PENALIZING and forcing people who don't believe in endorsing same sex marriage
to be under govt and laws that recognize and incorporate this. It's one thing if the law ALLOWS the practice
in private, but another thing to ENDORSE same sex marriage as a "right by law" instead of a free choice of religious
or spiritual practice. That's like two groups arguing over adult or infant baptism, or sprinkling or full immersion,
and the govt orders all the public to RECOGNIZE as a right all people's right to a baptism. That's a religious or spiritual practice and it's already protected under the First Amendment.
The most consistent argument I support
is that govt should not be in the business of regulating or defending, banning or penalizing people
for their beliefs about marriage any more than beliefs about baptism or communion etc.
I understand that since there has been such bullying and discrimination against
both the LGBT community as well as ADVOCATES, this has been fought as a civil rights issue.
But it's NOT the same as race which is genetic, so this has caused added conflict on
the issue of whether or not to recognize a new "class" of people or protections, if
at least SOME of the conditions are "external behavioral choices" more like the freedom to exercise one's faith.
Part of the reason for backlash both ways,
a lot of these SAME LGBT community members and rights advocates
EQUALLY "malign, harass, abuse and reject" Christians, Christian practices and beliefs, and especially
slander anyone defending "ex gay" testimonies and healing therapies that have been used by
people to heal from abuses that changed their orientation that wasn't natural for them or wanted.
So this is why I argue that LGBT and Christian practices and expression
should be treated EQUALLY as CREEDS, and not penalize people of either beliefs.
The discrimination is mutual and not one sided, so any laws that are enforced
should recognize and protect the beliefs on both sides from infringement by or on others of opposing beliefs.
Otherwise, laws that are onesided are going to "discriminate by creed"
if they only recognize and punish one side for abusing, harassing and maligning the other.
Again, if people disagree and reject in private, that's our free choice.
but this business of getting GOVT involved in "taking sides and endorsing beliefs
of one over the other" is where the conflict over political beliefs has risen to the
same level of First Amendment free exercise of religion where govt should neither establish nor prohibit either side.
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"Whoever Looks at a Woman With Lust": Misinterpreted Bible Passages #1 | Jason Staples
The first thing to understand in this passage (and in the Sermon on the Mount in general) is that Jesus is in no way intensifying the Law here, nor is he really saying anything new. What’s that, you say? The Law doesn’t forbid lusting after a woman, so Jesus has obviously turned things up to eleven by doing so?
Well, as it turns out, the Greek word usually translated “lust” in this passage (ἐπιθυμέω;
epithumeô) is precisely the word for “covet” (Hebrew חמד) in the Tenth Command in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), which says:
οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ πλησίον σου. οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ πλησίον σου οὔτε τὸν ἀγρὸν αὐτοῦ οὔτε τὸν παῖδα αὐτοῦ οὔτε τὴν παιδίσκην αὐτοῦ οὔτε τοῦ βοὸς αὐτοῦ οὔτε τοῦ ὑποζυγίου αὐτοῦ οὔτε παντὸς κτήνους αὐτοῦ οὔτε ὅσα τῷ πλησίον σού ἐστιν. (Ex 20:17 LXX)
“
You will not covet your neighbor’s wife. You will not covet your neighbors house or his field or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or any animal which is your neighbor’s.”
Looks pretty familiar, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s basically identical; the word translated “wife” here is the same that is translated “woman” in Matthew (there’s no distinction between the words “wife” and “woman” in Greek; both English words translate the same Greek word γύνη;
gynē).
Jesus isn’t saying anything new at all in Matthew 5:27–28; instead, he directly cites one of the Ten Commands to remind his audience that the Law not only prohibits adultery, it prohibits coveting with the same severity. This is not an intensification of the Law; it’s a reminder of what the Law already says. In addition, Jesus gives no indication that he regards the Law as too difficult to keep—he not only assumes that his followers
can follow his interpretation of the Torah but commands them to do so.
Now that it’s clear that Jesus isn’t saying something specifically new here but is instead calling attention to the Tenth Command, the next order of business is to understand the tenth command and the concept of “coveting.” The first thing to understand is that when the Hebrew חמד or Greek ἐπιθυμέω are used as verbs in the OT, it denotes desire directed at obtaining the specific object in question and not merely the existence of the desire itself.
Strikingly, the nominal (noun-form) concept of “lust” or “desire” (even the sexual variety) is nowhere forbidden in Scripture, nor is it equated with sin—only the
potential to sin: “Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then, when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is completed, it brings forth death” (James 1:14–15). Note that James clearly distinguishes between “lust” (that is, desire) at the stage of temptation and “sin,” which is the actual commission of an act.
In keeping with this distinction, Tenth Command specifically forbids the
action of coveting (hence the verbal form), perhaps
best understood as forbidding fixing one’s desire upon obtaining something that is not rightfully one’s own. (A fuller way to understand “coveting” is analogous to the modern legal concept of “attempted” lawbreaking, but that’s a subject for for another post.)
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